This just in:
I've figured out Shrew in a way that fits with my directorial AND feminist sensibilities.
Kate isn't tamed by P's whip, she's liberated by the discovery of her own imagination and and the power of laughter and play. If shrewishness is a rigidity locked in closed, predictable responses, the chaos of the play becomes a liberating force. P's shrew-taming celebrates life (because he is playing) and when Kate joins him - on the road to Padua (the moon/sun and Vincentio man/woman sequence) Shakes presents her as cured. When Kate discovers laughter in the world away from the desperate prison that her life was before... the weather changes to springtime. She's not tamed, she's reborn.
Kate isn't tamed by P's whip, she's liberated by the discovery of her own imagination and and the power of laughter and play. If shrewishness is a rigidity locked in closed, predictable responses, the chaos of the play becomes a liberating force. P's shrew-taming celebrates life (because he is playing) and when Kate joins him - on the road to Padua (the moon/sun and Vincentio man/woman sequence) Shakes presents her as cured. When Kate discovers laughter in the world away from the desperate prison that her life was before... the weather changes to springtime. She's not tamed, she's reborn.